A Birmingham woman accused of stabbing her love rival to death during a street fight claimed the victim looked “absolutely fine” when she left her.

Karla Biddle, 32, of Aldbury Road, Yardley Wood, had confronted 30-year-old Emma Bradshaw at the home of the boyfriend they shared in Berkeley Road, Shirley, in May last year.

Biddle told Warwick Crown Court she did not realise Miss Bradshaw had been injured until she received a call from boyfriend Ashley Watson hours after the fight.

Prosecuting in the murder trial, Mark Wall said after waiting for Mr Watson and his landlord to leave for work, Biddle got into the house and went into the kitchen where, using a knife she had taken there, stabbed Miss Bradshaw twice in the stomach.

Miss Bradshaw fled and tried to get help at a house opposite, but then staggered away and collapsed in the street.

Biddle claimed Miss Bradshaw had been brandishing a knife and she was injured in the attack, although chose not to call the police.

“I did not think of phoning the police over something like that. I was in panic. I just thought I could go to work and get my day done and then deal with it later,” she told the court.

She said she drove home and wrapped her bleeding hands in kitchen roll before having a shower and putting plasters on the cuts and getting ready for work.

She said there was blood from her cuts on her jogging bottoms and top she had been wearing, so she put them in a bin bag and threw them away on her way to work at Royal Sun Alliance in Birmingham.

Asked by her barrister Christopher Hotten QC if they had been heavily stained with Emma’s blood, she said ‘no’ and was not aware at the time that Emma had been bleeding.

She denied she had gone to confront Emma wearing a pair of pyjama trousers which the police later found in her washing machine with other clothes and some towels. She later received a call from Mr Watson about Miss Bradshaw’s injuries.

She said: “I was shocked because when I left I was absolutely sure she was fine.”